The Hardest Thing
by I am Pentangle
Summary: Seven years have passed, and White's own insecurities have caused her relationship with Elektra to become tense. Jealous of Elektra's university friend Effie and fearful of her own stupidity, events begin to tear open wounds that were once thought healed. Sequel to 'Between Fairytales and Happy Endings'.
1. Seven Years Hence

**A/N: Just a quick note to say please enjoy the story.**

A rumble cracks the sky asunder, as if the stratosphere was growling. Viscous black ash clouds seem to be belched out from the corners of my vision, bringing the inevitable patter of murky raindrops, every splash a micro-blizzard.

Not only is the sun a bitch, you can count the rain a bitch.

I huddle further into my coat, shrinking into the corner of the bus-stop. Glad I decided to take the bus now, the shop's too far out from my...well, old job. Getting caught in the rain's pretty much double-death for me, first my lungs tar up with mucus and God knows what else and I go parallax for a couple of days, and second, Elektra shouts at me.

God I sound like such a child.

The bus's late.

Aren't many people taking the bus out at lunchtime, they just scurry in and out of the cafe on the corner...

I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, bracing myself for the reaction.

The tone rings out, dull and metallic, made even more so by the reverberations of the cheap plastic walls of the shelter. I hear the other end click.

"Erm, hello? White?"

Without thinking I grind my teeth. That skittish voice, Effie must have picked up Elektra's phone.

"Effie, is Elektra there?"

"Why are you phoning in the middle of the day?"

"Can you just give the phone to Elektra?"

There's an exasperated sigh on the other end of the phone followed by a series of clunks and echoed voices.

I beat my foot against the damp tarmac.

"White? Why are you phoning at lunchtime?"

Here goes nothing, "Can I come and have lunch over at the shop?"

"Yeah sure..."

There's a pause, a bedrock heavy mantle.

"Alright, what happened?"

"I got sacked..."

"What, again?"

"I'm sorry...I promise I'll go back to the temp agency tomorrow..."

"No, no..." I hear her sigh on the other end of the phone, "i-it's fine...so, what excuse did they fob you off with this time?"

"Same as last time, something about the _economic climate_..."

"When in doubt sack the albino temp right?"

"Well, the firm was kinda dying on its arse, so..."

"Pft, you don't have to go justifying the whole thing, they're bastards, end of..."

The rumbling of the bus echoes up along the road, bouncing off dull concrete facades of office buildings.

"Listen, bus's coming...I-I'll see you later."

The call disconnects, the dull buzz from the phone being punctured by the tired hiss of the bus's breaks as it ground sluggishly to a halt beside the cracked, blistered, sodden pavement.

I try to go into autopilot as I enter to the dim heat haze of the bus, being buffeted by the fug created by huddled swarms of damp people.

But as I go through the motions, taking a seat, gazing out of the fugged up window, something, something...well, insidious starts to leech from some dark nook of my brain. A black gloop wrapping its tendrils around my cortex, dirtying the blood in my head.

It's probably just the cold, and being sacked...isn't switching jobs one of the most stressful things to do or something? I seem to being doing it more and more often now...so it would make sense then?

The black gloop seems to spread its tentacles down through my gullet and deep into my stomach, enraging the bile and making the walls snarl.

It's nothing, nothing surely?

But, even if I could keep telling myself that on some demented loop, it doesn't really feel like it would work. This twisted rage of paranoia lodged hard against my organs doesn't seem like it wants to leave anytime soon...in fact, these past seven years...

I wouldn't have thought that I would have lost one snare to gain another, like the world's least lucky rabbit.

My innards liquidise to black gloop as the bus moves off.

* * *

The shop's in one of those areas which I guess you could describe as being _trendy_, I prefer to think of it as painfully trying to be so. The word painful being the optimal word, in the sense that I would like to punch some of them, alongside anyone who says _well random_.

Faith says I have a shorter temper than Elektra, can't see how that's possible myself.

The persistent thrumming of the rain continues as I pelt for the black wooden shop front, specs of frigid water bouncing upon the cracked pavement and splattering up against my legs, creaking the shop door open to the characteristic dim thunk of the dented bell placed above the lintel.

The dry warmth, the dry warmth that slides between the books coils around my throat, part scarf, part anaconda. The bookshelves like struts reached tight between the half-carpeted floor and low ceiling, their rungs filled with a jumble of books both aged and new, scuffed and immaculate. I never quite understood how such a maze of shelves and rickety side-tables could actually fit in this space. I remember seeing the shop as bare bones when Elektra and Effie bought it, a white plasterboard husk.

I glance over to the desk, the creaking desk with a scuffed leather-bound top with the till and card reader sitting as an isle surrounded by yet more books. Sitting with legs hooked under her behind the desk was Effie, staring into the middle-distance, mint hued eyes partially glazed over. She had the appearance of one who had been stretched, seemingly gangly and fragile...not that I can hardly call anyone fragile. Her cheekbones were pointed by pale freckles, set against her equally pale red hair.

I think I could best describe her as skittish, this was probably the stillest I've ever seen her.

I slowly slope towards her, "Effie?"

She started, eyes becoming clear and violently tipping the office chair backwards before suddenly snapping back forwards to encourage another crazed shudder from her thin frame. I think I should probably add absent minded to that list as well.

With a deep heaving breath she calmed down, spinning the chair to look directly at me, "Er, hi White..."

"You...ok?"

"Yep! Yep, yep, yep..."

"You're babbling."

"Sorry..."

Told you, absent minded.

"Where's Elektra?"

"...and lunch?"

"Eh?"

"She's got lunch, in that, she's going to get lunch."

The muscles in my throat constrict, my voice box goes on strike. I search around for something to say...

The black gloop stirs again in my head. The blood veins start pounding in my ears.

God only hopes that Elektra turns up sooner rather than later.

* * *

It's amazing how minutes can drag into hours. A couple of minutes stretches, like infinite strips of spent chewing gum, into, what, hours? God damn hours?

Again, hopefully if you don't think about it, it won't really affect you...

Effie can talk to me, despite the fact that all I really seem capable of doing is responding with vaguely approving noises. It feels almost like she's talking to herself sometimes.

Put it this way, the tension, the cast steel hand which had been squeezing my brain like a sponge started to relax, relax and fade when Elektra's figure, tangled in a dark rain coat edged through the door, he same dim thunk of the bell announcing her presence.

"God it's horrible out there..." Elektra spluttered as she flipped the hood on her coat.

"Must've gotten worse in the last couple of minutes." responded Effie.

Elektra ruffled her hair, placing a large brown paper bag down on the desk, "Lunch is paninis by the way..."

I know the place, it's from that nice cafe with the interminable waiter who insists on calling everyone _bro_. Bloody idiot.

Effie starts again, "Oh! I'll, I'll go and get some drinks!"

Springing upwards to her feet, she sprinted behind a curtain at the back of the shop, into the kitchen at the back. Ever eager, I suppose that's a good thing...

I hear the legs of multiple chairs scrape against the floor, "Come on, sit down, you've been through the mill more today than either of us."

I sit down opposite to Elektra, propping my elbows on the tatty leather of the table. I feel a little less tense now...

"It wouldn't be so bad if you actually talked to her..." came Elektra's voice across the table.

A respond with a huffy silence.

"Christ White...it's been, what? Four years since you guys met?"

"You know what they say about first impressions..."

"I suppose there is that," she sniggered, "an' when it comes to screwing up the whole _first impressions_ thing, you really won hands down."

"Please don't remind me..."

Another pause.

"So," she began again, "what's the plan then?"

"Plan?"

"About the fact that the temping agency are a bunch of fucking halfwits who keep saddling you with terrible jobs..."

"It's not all that bad..."

"Yeah, remind me, how many jobs have you been booted from this month?"

"Three..."

"None of which have been your fault..."

"Well..."

"Well nothing..."

I cut her off, "If you think you've got the answer to this then..."

"You could always work here at the shop with me and Effie."

"No, I'm fine..."

"Just consider it."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine, I don't need you to give me a job..."

An uneasy quiet sets in as Effie wanders back through the curtain, carrying a clutch of mugs.

Lunch passes in the same uneasy quiet, yet another thing could've sworn I'd left behind me, but I guess so much of that I'll have to, well, put up with...

I make my excuses a quickly as possible, before heading back out into the now tearing rain, cold slashing through muscle, bone, straight into the marrow.

But as I slip through the rain, headed to the nearest patch of shelter, I can feel, feel not just the ever vicious cold prying against my body, but, but there's _that _thing again...that feeling running through my head and deep into the acrid pit of my stomach, like swallowing liquid metal, burning a carpet of blisters inside my veins.

When I think, I can't help but think that this blue-black tear running straight through the centre of my brain...I think it is the same...

I think the damn thing never left.


	2. Silence Falls

"Name."

I roll my eyes, "Whi-I mean...Emily, Emily Butterworth..."

The woman behind the desk resolutely bashed at her keyboard, peering over the silvered rims of her glasses. Part drinking straw, part cartoon vulture, the clerk's figure leered over a desk stacked high with paperwork and half drunk cups of tea at me. I swear my chair's significantly smaller than hers.

Call me paranoid...

With a final forceful click of her mouse, the clerk turned her attention back to me, "Well Ms. Butterworth, I wish to enquire as to why you've been coming in and out of this centre so often recently."

You know all too well you old hag, and yet you're gonna force me to say it...

"I got sacked."

"Hmm, just like the last couple of times, correct?"

"Correct."

She looked down her tapering nose at me, "And I guess you're wanting another job Ms. Butterworth?"

Why the hell else would I be here, because I enjoy being patronised?

"Yes..."

The clerk began hammering away at her keyboard once more, "You have to understand that I may not be able to find something quite as good for you this time..."

Because desk jobs are so very wonderful...

More hammering at the keyboard, "There's an Italian restaurant who wants a temporary waitress-"

"I'll take it."

Waitressing, ought to be relatively painless right? Ought to be better than the last couple of deadbeat jobs I've had...hopefully anyways.

"Are you sure you don't want me to tell you the other jobs Ms. Butterworth-"

"No-I-I mean that I would be perfectly fine with, with the waitressing job..."

"Fine then Ms. Butterworth, I'll start filing the paperwork and I'll give you a call..."

"Fine," I barely notice the hefty sigh that tears through my chest, "Fine, yeah...it's fine."

The clerk diverted her gaze back to the computer, letting out a distinct half-snarl, half-sigh. A clear indication for me to get the hell out of her office. I stare down at my scuffed flats, shuffling to my feet, a dull, metallic throb pulsing at the base of my skull, strafing the line between painful and irritating.

I hate this place, I hate it...smells like mediocrity, which smells like stomach bile, and don't ask me how I know how that smells. But it's like the phrase I guess, _necessary evil_...if I didn't come here I wouldn't have a bloody job...no matter how dire some people may think the jobs are...

But, but I'd rather be doing something...

I push to the doors, a breaker wave of bitter, razor-edged wind digs its wafer-thin steel straight down into the cavities of my bones, leaving nothing but vicious shivers. I feel like a child's rattle, this pink and purple guts bag clacking insistently.

I coil into myself like some armadillo as I make my way down to the bus stop, the world surrounding me seems to melt together into a mess of greys, unable to see the joins, the edges, between what could be called one thing and another. My brain is swimming in some gelatinous mire, like my skull is filled with alcohol...and porridge, and some unidentified gloop that you wouldn't care to identity.

Maybe, maybe, I'm coming down with something? Oh God, I hope not...although, it'd be the least of my problems at the moment I guess.

At least I get hospital orange jui-stop it! It was ages since you were last ill, and you're not gonna get ill again, are you?

Just keep telling yourself that, positive thinking is nine tenths of the law, at least that's what Faith keeps telling me...

I'm not gonna get ill gain, I'm not gonna get ill again...

* * *

"Hey White, how'd it go at the temp agency?"

"Erm, hi Elektra, it-it..."

"What's wrong?"

"What d'ya mean?"

"Your voice is all stuttery, something's wrong."

"Nope, nothing's wrong, nothing at all..."

"Ok then, so how did it go then?"

"Well, I got a job..."

"Great then, what is it?"

"...IgotajobworkinginaItalianrestaurantasawaitress talktoyoulaterbye!"

_Click...Beeep...Beeep..._

* * *

The rain begins the vanguard of its assault just as I slink into the flat, shutting the door and leaning up against the door, a musty warmth hitting me like yet another breaker wave. Air slowly leeched from my lungs...I hadn't realised I'd been holding my breath.

From some contrived sense of, almost, ritual, I wander to the window, straining my eyes to glance beyond the relentless needles of rain. Everything seems so awfully quiet, the splattering of the rain becoming as white noise.

I collapse back onto the sofa, the springs giving a heaving sigh, almost sounding exasperated.

I can sympathise.

For some reason, my eyes return to the window...and then, something, something starts to nag me, squirming around at the base of my skull with snaggletooth snarls. God, what is it? There's something, something trying to force its way to the surface of my mind, almost like it's been suppressed deep down in my subconscious, like a broken anchor at the bottom of the ocean.

It breaks the surface.

Oh God, _that_. I suddenly realise I'm biting down hard on my lip.

_"The taxi's already outside, you don't wanna miss your train."_

_"I can't find my watch..."_

_"It's on the bedside table where you last left it."_

_The almighty clattering in the bedroom suddenly subsides, Elektra emerging, nervously fitting her watch to her wrist, trailing destruction and suitcases behind her._

_I stand, leaning against the wall, by the door, drumming my fingers against my arm, seemingly feeling the stress of the situation far more than I probably should be._

_I glance up, and suddenly find myself fixed with a look that it'd never really seen Elektra use before. I can't quiet describe it nor place it, a strange look of, well neither guilt nor concern, nor sadness nor nerves. I don't know, it was kinda all of these things and none of these things._

_She suddenly twigged my confusion, "Are you sure you're gonna be alright?"_

_"You've got a taxi to get."_

_"Just answer the question..."_

_"Taxi!"_

_"White!"_

_The frustration evaporates from my every pore, like I'm a balloon which has suddenly been let down. My innards become as empty as a vacuum._

_"Look, I've got a job, I can look after myself, everything's gonna be fine..."_

_She bit down hard on her lip, "Fine...bye then."_

_"Bye..."_

_She left the flat in silence, the rain starting to beat like so many bowling balls at the roof tiles._

_I wandered slowly to the window, watching the dull black smear of the taxi slide away into the oncoming wild maw of the storm._

_I suddenly become aware of the silence, silence like a garrotte, like I'm a small, small mouse in some endless catacomb, the stone arches looming like vast, hungry mouths. So much silence, what seems like so much endless empty space, it suddenly felt like I was drowning, suffocating in the God damn silence..._

_I patter into the bathroom, and throw up in the toilet, innards turning themselves inside out before I collapse back onto the scratched linoleum allowing time to fade into some abstract soup... _

Reality crash back when I feel a warm snake of red iron, feeling hotter than the sun slithering down onto my collarbone. I must have bit my lip so hard I made the stupid thing bleed...

I remember that day so clearly, I can't remember how long I spent on the bathroom floor though...perhaps it's better that I don't...I don't need another thing reminding me of how much of a petty little child I am, that I can be.

Elektra had vanished off to university, and I'd been left behind, working the nine to five like I thought I'd wanted...

Perhaps now I realise that it's all I was really capable of, it would seem I'm capable of even less now...

So it would seem, so it would fucking seem...


	3. Gore-o-rama

I hate Autumn. It always struck me as the most indecisive season. A huff of mild irritations ripples through my chest as I glance skyward.

It's strange, in Autumn, everything seems to fug together into one indistinguishable whole, one grey, murky, filthy as the inside of a chimney whole. Couldn't it hurt to have some distinction? It wouldn't trouble whomever's in charge to actual distinguish between what could be called cloud and what could be called sky.

The distinction between sky and earth sometimes even seemed strained, long wiry fingers reaching and interlocking in-between, making the world look as if there had been an explosion in God's grey paint factory.

I could have sworn I could feel the paint starting to gum up my red eyes...nah, don't be ridiculous...

Giving my head a vicious shake, trying to break from the feeling that my legs were entangled in a mess of netting and lead weights.

Besides, I don't really think it would do me any favours to be late for the new job, in any sense. I'd gotten a call from the restaurant's manager, telling me, and when I say telling, I mean possibility of grievous bodily harm if desires are not carried out, to be there prompt for the lunch rush.

Despite he fact I'd never met the restaurant's manager, I think I had a distinct idea of the kind of person he was. On the phone he sounded like he was about five seconds from having the world's biggest coronary...

"Hey, White!"

I keep moving, subconsciously rolling my shoulders up, preparing for a bad outcome.

At least the street was deserted both ways for some distance, last time she'd called me out in public some uppity woman had called her a racist, resulting in a rather awkward explanation ...despite the fact that albinism isn't a race...

I kept walking as her Doc Martins drew pace with me on the pavement.

"Are you ignoring me?" Elektra started, "Didn't you hear me calling..."

"I'm not ignoring you."

She huffed, "Ok then..."

I could tell she didn't believe me.

"How'd you find me then?"

"You left a copy of the address on the coffee table."

Bugger.

"So is this what all that jabber on the phone was about then?"

"I thought you'd be angry with me."

"Why the hell would I be angry at you?"

"You sounded angry then."

"No I didn't."

"If I say you sounded angry, you sounded angry."

"So you're in my head now?"

I try to respond, but all my throat seems capable of doing is some congested growl.

Spinning on the balls of her feet, I suddenly came face to face with Elektra, halting dead in my track with a comical stumble.

"Look, Elektra, I don't wanna be late for my first time at the..."

"I'm sorry if I haven't been paying much attention to you recently..."

My voice box seizes up again, diving into the deepest recesses of some contrived rigamortis, the simple statement catching me off guard, as if I'd been tripped into the jaws of a heavy door waiting to swing too.

In so many ways...I don't know, I sometimes feel as transparent as glass...

Someone flicks on a light switch in my head, "Have you been talking to Faith again?"

"What makes you say that?"

If I'm made of glass she's made of rock.

Besides, the answer was relatively obvious, in that Faith was the only person who'd give advice like that...since she didn't seem to think that throwing cushions at each other was a decent was of sorting out your issues.

"It just sounds like something she'd say."

I watched Elektra tangle her fingers together, "So I take it you've got more important things to do."

The door swung to, I felt my bones crunch and snare into fine dust.

"No...no," I let out an exasperated sigh, "I didn't mean that."

A silence like molten iron descended, in all its flesh melting horror.

For once it's me who shreds the silence, "What did you think we should do then?"

She idly clicked her tongue, " Well, I doubt Tyler would be happy if we dossed of his staff discount at the restaurant again..."

"At least for the rest of the month, I'm sure he'll forget..."

She sniggered, a brief flash of colour against the mire of grey paint.

"Isn't there a movie marathon on at Rick's club or something like that?" she asked.

"Isn't that horror film marathon or something like that?"

"And?"

"The last time you watched a horror film you had those crazy nightmares..."

"And?"

"...and kicked me out of bed so hard you almost broke my spine."

"Well, you didn't break your spine did you?" Elektra smirked, giving a little sly wink.

I feel my toes curl.

"You know you're a bastard right?"

"Surprised you've only just noticed."

"Ha-fuckin'-ha..."

"I'll take that as a yes then?"

"Ok then, you got me..."

"Great," she started, "I'll see you after work then!"

She started to move off before almost interrupting herself, pausing and suddenly staring straight through me, gaze putting razors to shame.

I shrink into myself, "What? What have I done now?"

"Listen," her tone suddenly became almost deathly serious, grabbing my hands between hers, "I don't care what you say, I just want you to take this..."

I feel cold metal prickle against my palm, serrated edges nestling themselves in the rivulets of the joints. I uncoil my palm to find a rather unassuming key...when I say unassuming however, I meaning unassuming in all but purpose.

"Elektra..."

"No, I don't wanna hear it...it's not like I trying to force a job on you or something, it's just a key, so you can come to the shop more often..."

"Fine..."

"Fine?"

"Yes...I'll take it," I manage a weak smile, "th-thank you."

"Great, I'll pick you up after work then!"

I glance over my shoulder briefly to see Elektra pelting back up the street before shuffling into a stale and frigid gust of wind, keeping my head down and feet up, trying to make up for lost time...

I can feel the edges of the key nicking at my loose skin...what exactly just happened?

There's something, something that feels like a million skittering mice chewing at my synapses as they were electrical cables. I can feel their scabby little feet and claws as iron nails snaring on the gooey flesh. Not quite painful...but then again, the minute you think about it, pain as white hot as the heart of a dying star blasts out from the cortex, everything becoming as scorched earth from eyeball to eyeball.

A second of agony into what feels a lifetime of dizziness. A ripple surges through my stomach...

Stop it...fucking stop it, you said it yourself, this is all in your head, you're not gonna be sick...

Also, I don't think throwing up on my first day on the job would really create the best impression.

* * *

Night had collapsed about the city like a thick treacle pawl, slithering across window panes and filling the guttering with a disgusting dark stench, so sickly sweet as to jar up your sinuses. A rainless night were the dim, cracked concrete needed rain above all else, if only to remove the everlasting stench.

My assumptions had been right about the manager, coronary on legs and all. He was a creature so rent with rage his veins should explode, bile and blood gushing from ears and nose. Not a pleasant soul, let's just put it that way.

Maybe if you keep your trap shut though, this might not be such an unpleasant experience...you're working and earning money, that's always gotta be a plus, right?

"Hello? Staring off into space again?"

With a sudden start like a punch to the chest, Elektra's voice making me snap out of my sudden stupor.

"What wrong? Something happen at work?"

"Aside from the usual, it was ok...I guess."

"You mean the manager's a prick?"

"And you made that assumption how?"

"Well your normal tends to be that your manager is always a prick."

Fair point.

"And your definition of normal is?"

"Drinking a lot of tea, Effie falling over, getting annoying enquiries..."

"And even selling some books perhaps?"

"Got it in one."

Rounding the corner, the shadows roll back their jaws at the blistering light of the cinema shoot their thumbs straight against my retina. Well...I say _cinema_, I think I've heard it referred to by multiple different terms, I don't think Rick was ever that specific on what the hell this place technically is. Most of the descriptions I've heard though tend to involve the word _arts_...and to be honest, I've never claimed to fully understand places that have the word _arts _in them.

Although, I think there could be better things for me to do than admit I didn't _quite _understand it to and arts person, like declare that I was a massive fan of genocide.

Besides, vanity and all...

I glance up at the stark and proud black lettering standing stock against the old fashioned light-box, the bill packed from all directions with the suitably grim...what was it, there was a word to describe this..._Grindhouse_? I think that was it...

Another thing I didn't quite get...or perhaps understand would be more appropriate.

Gah, yet another thing that make me feel like a moron, the little bastards, fangs like poisoned arrow heads, formed into little twisted grins.

Although, Elektra's never been such a fan of horror either...

"Keeping up appearances after all these years then?"

I start at my own words, the syllables forcing their way up my throat and into fruition as if my tongue had been possessed.

"I've got no idea what you're talking about."

Neither had I if we're being picky.

I try and bluff it out, "You've never been keen on horror..."

"Getting jittery?"

"Eh?"

She put on a mock-patronising voice, "Don't worry, I'll be there to hold your hand."

"Me? I'm not the closet scaredy-cat here!"

"Oh you say that now..."

I'm not quite sure that bluff worked, the fear ricocheting around in my head that I'd been torn wide open...

And if I'm honest? There is one thing I could be said to be clinging to as a certainty here, but clinging in the sense of a castaway to a splintered ship's plank...

The one thing, the one thing that God only knows that I don't want to lie.


	4. The Best Impression

What...where-where am I?

I-I can feel rough fabric, rough fabric scraping against my cheek...my body feels like its collapsed in on itself...arms twisted together like a human pretzel...

My eyelid trembles.

Sweet motherfucking Jesus! Light rams itself straight through the heart of my eyeball, barbed spears wriggling around and tearing at my retina. A squirm myself into a ball, burrowing myself deeper into the scratchy folds of the cheap fabric.

I lie coiled for what feels like hours, pain rattling about in my skull like some demented rubber ball.

I sense movement to my right.

"White?"

The noise drills through my eardrum, blood spurting from the flesh like something out of a horror movie...horror movie? Why does that ring a bell?

"White!"

Something starts shaking me, a wave of nausea crashing over me, a tidal wave of acid.

"St-stop it..." I manage to mumble.

The persistent hand flips me onto my back, my limbs taking a life of their own and becoming as jelly.

I cautiously inch my eyes open.

A blur stands above me, a smudged shape against a plane of bleary white.

I wait patiently for the world to shot into focus...any moment now...surely?

My limbs suddenly become like those of a squid who's had a thousand volts passed through it.

"I'm blind!"

The blur gave and exasperated sigh, "No, you've just lost your contacts."

"My what?"

"Your contacts...ugh, for God's sake, here."

The blur started brandishing a small, shiny cylinder right in front of my face. I batted the cylinder away like a disinterested cat, eliciting an irritated huff from the blur.

"Fine...fine."

I grabbed at the cylinder, the cool feeling of liquid leeching through into the taught flesh of my palm, memories of this object suddenly blazing into life deep in my hippocampus, a wild fire spreading through my nerve-endings. Yeah...my contacts...how could I forget these?

Again, vanity and all...

Commanding my hand not to quiver, I try to ease the breath thin film of liquid up against my light-blistered eyeballs, a mantle of ice settling in as the lenses slid into place.

The world shoots into sharp, bright focus, curves and edges becoming pure and defined, like a photograph emerging from the developing fluid.

I was lying parallax on a sofa, and moreover the point, not my sofa. I glance up.

"Ah," I mumble, embarrassment shooting into place like a vice around my torso, "hi Faith..."

The comedy thunderclouds hovering around Faith dissipated, being replaced by a look of what some might call patronising pity, but I guess I wouldn't...mainly because I don't like being patronised. Ignorance is bliss, right?

"Hello yourself-"

"What's wrong with me?"

"You've got a hangover."

Some flicks the lights on upstairs.

"Ohhhh, right..."

"I'm not surprised, you came in here last night roaring drunk-"

"Wait, what?"

"Roaring drunk? You know..." she waved her hands around in some fruitless attempt to explain.

My blank expression was enough of an explanation.

"You don't remember anything do you?" Faith concluded.

"Nope."

She raised a hand to forehead in an expression of pure frustration, "Well, you started hanging off the intercom around one in the morning, waking everyone in block up as well, so well done on that-"

"Thank you-"

"It wasn't a compliment."

"Oh..."

"Then you barrelled in here, ranting about a movie marathon or something-"

"Horror movies..."

"What?"

I catch myself before I say something stupid, "Nothing! Please continue."

"Then you started crying intelligibly, you kept going on that you and Elektra had had a fight or something like that..."

Oh God, memories began to burst into life like time lapse videos of flowers blooming...

"...and then you ate all my ice cream and threw up in the sink."

The embarrassment turned my lungs to shreds, "I guess you'll want me to clear that up?"

"Ugh...no, it's ok, I cleaned it up after you passed out..."

Faith's words almost seem to sink of into a great swell of nothingness as the fug of memory engulfs me. What happened last night shoots into my mind's eye with almost unearthly clarity. I remember it, I remember how everything was going...well, perfectly ok...

Then, I don't know quite why, but by some weird mental symbiosis, we'd basically made the decision of '_fuck this, we're getting shit-faced_'...and after that, well, let me put it this way, people who've gone to a horror movie marathon don't appreciate it when the two weirdos at the back suddenly start finding everything hilarious.

Yeah...we managed to get ourselves thrown out...but after that, things seemed to only get significantly worse. Booze is a truly harsh mistress, or perhaps bitch would be a more accurate assessment. Snatches of my drunken stupor start to bleed through the memory miasma...that feeling of your whole form being lost in a mire of black and bitter syrup, you're walking through treacle.

At once the world seems to go from a glittering land of candy floss clouds and, and...pink fluffy unicorns? You get the idea...but then, everything turns sour, you're in some hell from which you can never escape...

I'd blundered straight into the hungry maw of a hell were in the briefest second, everything turned the colour of congealed blood.

I'm not quite sure who had started it, not that that's something I would really care to dwell on...but as soon as we were turned out to the howl of the cold night we'd turned on each other, almost trying to tear chunks from one another.

God only knows were Elektra was now, were she'd gone after we'd somehow had the sense to walk, or more appropriately, stagger, away...

"What were you guys arguing about anyway?"

Faith's voice from the kitchen shook me to my senses.

"I-I don't quite know," came my cobbled-together response as I heaved myself to my feet.

"It wasn't the thing you guys always seem to argue about, was it?"

"My job you mean?"

"The other one then."

My limbs lock up, "H-how...what do you mean?"

"All this time it's been fairly obvious that you have massive problem with Eff-"

"No, I don't everything's fine..."

I could clearly hear Faith grid her teeth, " You guys really have a hell of a lot in common you know..."

"If we're so bad then why do you put up with us?"

"Because someone's gotta look after you two..."

* * *

The morning is a grey as any I've seen before as I stumble through it, trying to form my thoughts into some kind of coherent pattern. I'm not sure that Elektra would go back to the flat, when you're drunk you seem to have an inbuilt homing instinct to find someone who'll look after you, I'm guessing that's why I ended up on Faith's sofa...

I'm guessing that means she'll probably have gone to Effie, she's the only friend she's got who'd put up with that kind of bullshit...

I feel my lungs deflate, balloons who'd had a fatal run in with a needle. I slow to barely a crawl.

God...I never learn anything do I? I've already screwed up so many times before when alcohol was involved, I thought I would have learned something by now...and no, knowing where I keep going wrong in the first place doesn't help in the fuckin' slightest...

It was that one time, that one time which seems to snarl at the base of my skull every time I think about alcohol...and Effie...

_Beeeeeep... Beeeeeep..._

_My hanging on the bell gets me a face full of door._

_The world collapses away from me in some mad heady rush, stomach twisting itself into endless contortions. I can feel someone, I can feel flesh..._

_"Oh my God, are you ok?"_

_A burning tidal wave smashes through my gut, I respond with a sluice of vomit. _

_I feel the figure rush back from me with a cry of disgust, leaving me bow-legged in the hallway._

_"Sorry..." I burble._

_"I-It's ok," the figure responded, managing to somehow keep her cool, "are you White?"_

_I manage a grim nod._

_"G-go into the kitchen, I'll get Elektra for you."_

_Bracing myself against the walls, I hawk my form, heavy as lead, into the dingy student kitchen, world set of fast spin cycle..._

_There's another figure..._

_"Hey Elektra," the new figure called out, "your drunk albino friend's here!"_

_My legs suddenly give up, the ground punches me in the face...were there always those bright little lights dancing in my vision...little bastards..._

_"Effie? What the hell happened to you?"_

_"Your girlfriend threw up on me-"_

_"Just go and get cleaned up..."_

_Hands lock themselves around my brittle shoulders, hauling the world the right way up. A voice cascades over me, driving the tiny lights back in perfectly concentric ripples._

_"You're gonna be ok, everything's gonna be ok..."_

_Reality is claimed by the black vapours of infinity._

I don't remember much aside from that, every time I try and focus on any kind of specific from the first time I met Effie, the memory catches fire in my head, refusing to fade 'till I turn my back on it. Perhaps it's me subconsciously trying to prevent the damn thing weighing me down anymore than it really should...

An God knows I've got an anvil around my neck already, adding lead weights to that would be double death.


	5. A Study in Paranoia

I don't think people ever realise how powerful a force paranoia is until they've experienced the full ugly brunt of its machinations.

Even as you feel its poison-filled fangs tear deep to your marrow, blood curdling to some murky half-jelly, you still can't quite comprehend the bugger. Its shape, the clear edges of its being, twist and snare into a million different shapes in a nano-second, some comprehensible, not all that comprehensible. To me, the forms it seems to leap between, indecisive with its atoms, seem so polarised...one second I see a little bearded imp in a bright red pointy cap, and the next I see a vast, towering behemoth, a mouth of a thousand septic needles, bone blades bursting from its joints, eyes gimlets of infinity...

Sometimes I think it's better to expect that I'm fucked up and continue on with things.

Paranoia makes me think that the grim, broiling cold ghast of the grey cloud bank is following me like the hounds of the Wild Hunt...every time I a set a foot outside the flat nowadays the weather seems to snarl and vomit in unison at my general presence.

I don't think that's technically possible thought...if it was what would you call it? Snomit? Varl?

Stop it White you're talking like a crazy person...an' you're not even talking you're thinking...an' you're talking-_thinking_-to yourself.

Fuck, fucking...

Bastard paranoia.

I grind my teeth and scuff the sole of my trainer against the blistered tarmac, looking for all the world like a petulant child...I'm an adult, I'm expected to tangle my rage in barbed wire and shove as far down my gullet as physically possible. Rage is supposed to bubble under the surface, no matter how painful or acidic it becomes. There seems to be some contraband on emotions when your an adult.

Hangover swishing above me like so many vultures around some poor bugger lost in a desert, I feel my shoulders roll as low as they possibly could out of sheer frustration as I trundle on.

I glance up at the shop-fronts internally wincing at the irritating displays of _trendy_-Christ I hate that word-miscellany, thick rimmed glasses, clip on coon tails, you know the thing...

At least that means the book shop's nearer...it's beginning to feel as if the cold is eating me, vast frosty maws trying to gam through my clothes.

I suddenly realise I smell like a brewery, and stomach bile.

I probably should have apologised to Faith more than I did.

* * *

The black frontage of the shop slowly slips into view round the corner, the bright words _Books bought and sold_ and a tiny rainbow flag stamping a shimmer of colour upon the almost opalescent window panes.

I absent-mindedly ram my hand into my pocket as I go to knock, only to feel the characteristic nicking of sharpened cold metal at my knuckles. I pause, digging the offending object out of the deep recesses of my pocket.

The dim silver of the key stands out against the paper white and the dark creases of my palm.

More memories. So many more flowers blooming on fast forward.

They swat my hangover as newspaper would flies.

I click the lock open, the tinny snap accompanied by the dull thunk of the lintel bell. I glance into the dim recesses of the shop, book shelves becoming as monoliths in the grey gloom. Slipping into the shop, I quietly shut the door behind me, eyes taking in another sweep of the shop. Behind the dull patterned curtain concealing the way into the kitchen, a slightly flickering lamp-light punctured the shade. Silhouettes, silhouettes whose edges seemed barely defined shifted through the light, the crash of voices entangled in an argument pounding from the kitchen.

I feel my back muscles tense.

"Listen, I have no idea what your problem is!" came the first voice, unmistakably Elektra's in its ability to sound harsh and soft in duality.

"Haven't you been listening to me?" came the second voice, this being unmistakably Effie's in its soft West Country tilt.

I don't think I've ever heard Effie angry before. I thought she must just be one of those people who didn't have the capacity to get angry.

"Yes I have," Elektra responded, "but all I've been hearing is meh meh meh meh-"

"Well isn't that-" Effie made some weird strangled gurgle at the back of her throat.

"Oh, so that's your comeback?"

"Just stop it!"

"I'm not the one who thinks doing Wookie impression is the way to win an argument."

That's why Effie isn't one of life's argumentative types, she's shit at it.

Effie piped up the courage to make another stab at her point, "Listen, it's just that I find it a bit awkward being around your orphanage-"

Elektra cut across her, voice serrated and stained up to its hilt in blood, "It's a _care home_, not an orphanage, how many times do I have to fucking tell you-"

"Ok ok, _care home_...it just I find being around them all the time, your friends from the _care home _that is..."

"All the time? What d'ya mean _all the time_?"

"Would it hurt to make friends with some people from outside that circle-"

"I've got you haven't I?"

I suddenly feel my stomach twist itself up ad if it were a tea towel being rung out.

"That's not the point..."

"There speaks a girl overflowing with self-confidence-"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Well then, what do you mean?"

"Eh?"

"There's an irony somewhere in there you know."

"Will you stop mud-slinging for once?"

"No need to get aggressive-"

"You bloody hypocrite!"

"I just mean you try to tiptoe around a subject like it's not even there. Surely it wouldn't hurt to actually say what you actually mean for once?"

Evidently it did hurt as what came after was the exasperated hiss of air being expelled through clenched teeth.

There's an iron-heavy silence, distorted ever so slightly by the sound of someone rummaging around in the cupboards and popping the lid on a coffee jar.

"You have to remember, you did agree with me on buying this place." came Elektra's voice, filling in the silence like liquid concrete in a mold.

"I know...it's just I thought it'd be-"

"Different?"

"Erm..."

"Well I'm sorry to have disappointed you."

"No-it's-I'm sorry."

"Don't be, you've done nothing wrong."

The kettle started to boil.

"If you're sick of spending your time with me just say-"

"I'm not..."

"Isn't that what you where trying to tell me?"

"I-I-"

I stick my head around the frayed edge of the curtain.

"Surprise?" I say, wondering how the hell I made that sound like a question.

Elektra glances over her shoulder at me whilst Effie seemed to shrink into herself out of embarrassment.

"Oh hi White..." Effie stammered, a deep tint of almost fear quivering in her voice, "...I've just got to go an'...defrost the...cat-bye!" She scampered up the stupidly tight steps leading to her flat upstairs, making good her escape.

She doesn't even have a bloody cat.

Elektra began rummaging in the cabinet where they kept the mugs.

"You want a coffee?" she mumbled, back still turned.

I move out from behind the curtain, leaning against the kitchen table, "Yeah, ok."

She turned round slowly, I noticed how bloodshot her eyes were, dark circles running like blue-black streams almost to her cheekbones.

"You hear that?" she asked.

Time to be diplomatic, "Hear what?"

"Nothing."

"Good."

"Good?"

Did I mention diplomatic also means lying through your teeth?

She rubbed her temples sluggishly, "You smell like a brewery...and vomit."

"You don't look to good yourself."

"Charming."

"Charm yourself..."

"That doesn't even make any sense."

"It's eight thirty in the morning and we're both hung-over, it wasn't supposed to make any sense."

She raise an empty mug in a mock-toast, "Amen to that."

I collapse into one of the chairs clustered around the table, plastic legs squeaking against cheap linoleum, propping my chin up by my clenched fists. As I glance lazily around an ice-cold ripple shoots through my consciousness, freezing and jarring the melds of flesh driving my thought patterns. I can feel something stirring, something my poor addled mind couldn't stop without busting open veins and capillaries in a blood flow.

"What happened last night?" I mutter, inwardly cringing at my sheer stupidity, insane thoughts running away from sane thoughts like a bull with a bright red bit between its teeth.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Why not?"

Stop it! Stop trying to cause a fucking argument!

I hear Elektra give a snort of derision, "Things happen, move on."

"Don't get on your high horse, you were the one who started it!"

"We _both _got drunk, now will you please shut it?"

"Wh-"

"I've got no time for this bullshit! Christ I never realised how ornery you get when your hung-over."

"If you add a-"

"Don't do that joke."

I finally manage to anchor the mad kamikaze rush pounding a tattoo against my skull, the ice-cold flow becoming a vomit-inducing heat setting my mind in a grim dizzy state, only made worse by a sudden acid flow of unheeded guilt...

They even argue like we used to.

I suddenly find a mug of coffee being shoved under my nose.

"Drink it, we need to sober you up-"

"Because a massive hit of caffeine is really what I need now..."

"Well the bathroom's up the stairs on the left."

"Your sense of care is legendary."

"That doesn't make much sense either..."

I go for the mug, trying to chug the coffee to quell the pounding in my ears. My coughing, squeaking splutter is enough to indicate the success of that venture. Christ, to the rest of the world I must seem like such a fucking mess.

"How's the dissertation on the nature of the universe coming on then?" came the standard snarky reply...well it's not like I wouldn't have done the same...

"Wewy thunni."

To add to the fact that I look like the world's biggest moron, I now sound like the world's biggest moron, pain beyond pain searing deep etched scars against my tongue's flesh. God, this is gonna sting like hell for weeks...

"Go an' get yourself cleaned up, up the stairs on the left..."

"Von't Ethie mwind?"

"Nah, she'll be fine..."

I start to slink up the stairs, the pain on my tongue only matching the pain in my head.

You know what I said about paranoia...imp, demon, imp, demon...fuck, it feels as if my brain is melting to sloppy gloop and sluicing from my ears, black beast stirring, roaring and rumbling. And again, I can't make head nor tail of any of this, paranoia's form becoming as indistinct as ever it was...

Perhaps when I call it the black beast, the black beast and the black gloop...perhaps the colour green would perhaps be more appropriate...

No, don't be stupid...that's-that's...bloody ridiculous, isn't it?

I can't be right...oh God I am right aren't I?

Oh God no.


End file.
